Also 7 laskayre, (luscar), 7–8 lascarr. [Either an erroneous European use of Urdu lashkar army, camp (see LASHKAR), or a shortened form of its derivative lashkarī (see LASCARINE). In Pg. c. 1600 laschar occurs in the same sense as lasquarim, i.e., native soldier; this use, from which the current applications are derived, is not recorded in Eng. (but see quot. 1698 in 1).]
1. An East Indian sailor.
1625. Purchas, Pilgrims, I. v. 650. I caused all my Laskayres to remaine aboord the Vnicorne.
1696. Ovington, Voy. Surratt, 464. The English Sailers … perceiv’d the softness of the Indian Lascarrs; how tame they were [etc.].
1698. Fryer, Acc. E. India & P., 107. The Seamen and Soldiers differ only in a Vowel, the one being pronounced with an u, the other with an a; as Luscar is a Soldier; Lascar, a Seaman.
1712. W. Rogers, Voy. (1718), 311. 36 Manila Indians, call’d Las-carrs.
1777. Miller, in Phil. Trans., LXVIII. 172. Besides the four lascars that rowed the boat.
1800. Asiatic Ann. Reg., Chron., 46/1. There were only the captain and three officers, with 13 lascars, able to do duty.
1832. Marryat, N. Forster, xli. If we only had all English seamen on board, instead of these Lascars and Chinamen.
1849. Longf., Building of Ship, 161. Where the tumbling surf, O’er the coral reefs of Madagascar, Washes the feet of the swarthy Lascar.
attrib. and Comb. 1887. Pall Mall Gaz., 3 Aug., 2/2. The second mate of a Lascar-manned ship is on watch until four o’clock.
1900. Daily News, 20 Sept., 9/4. Sickness broke out among the Lascar crew.
2. Anglo-Indian. ‘A tent-pitcher’; also, an inferior class of artilleryman (more fully gun-lascar).
1798. Webbe, in Owen, Wellesley’s Desp., 7. A body of about 14,000 men can be drawn together, including Lascars and pioneers.
1799. Baird, Ibid., 126. One hundred artillerymen with a proportion of gun lascars.
1800. Wellington, in Gurw., Desp. (1837), I. 125. We can get neither recruits, servants, lascars, coolies, or bullock drivers.
1870. J. W. Kaye, Hist. Sepoy War, II. IV. iii. 89. All the natives in the Magazine, the gun-lascars, the artificers and others.
